So, Andrew Johns – sorry, Andrew 'Joey' Johns – was busted with ecstacy. And at a party, what's more – not in a desperate attempt to enjoy watching a Newcastle Knights match, which would have been more understandable. No – his defence was that someone had put it in his pocket. It's amazing how often drugs seem to mysteriously appear when high-profile people are out partying. Don't tell me that Michelle Leslie's mysterious friend "Mia" has been up to her old tricks again?

These are embarrassing headlines for a man who admits he's a role model for kids, but hardly unusual. This year it seems more footballers have hit the headlines for drug incidents than for their play, especially out on the wild, wild West Coast.

Now, I'm not about to pass judgement on whether it was Joey's ecstacy, or he'd taken it, or anything like that. Call me a shameless libertine, but I'm not particularly bothered by the revelation that someone who has retired from a sport might care to indulge in – or at least be caught with – a recreational drug. I am led to believe people like them. Hence the market. Hence today's statistic that cocaine use – or at least prosecutions – are up 70%. In fact, the coke market's looking a lot healthier than the stock market. Talk about an 80s revival.

Casual drug use is commonplace, and it would be deeply hypocritical for many in the media to be up in arms about it. Almost as hypocritical, in fact, as if someone who's opposed gay marriage and hounded Bill Clinton over Monica Lewinsky pleaded guilty to soliciting gay sex in a public toilet.

The interesting question, though, is what we do about the supposed drug scourge. In Joey's case, it's been taken care of quickly, efficiently and sensibly. He got an official warning, a black mark, but no further consequences. That seems an extremely mature approach from the UK justice system. A slap on the wrist – and an embarrassing spectacle in the case of someone high-profile – and the promise of more severe consequences next time. He'll learn from it, and probably be more careful next time. And that's pretty much all that has to be said.

Far more serious than Joey's situation is the furore over Channel Seven's outing of players based on obtaining their medical records. The AFL has introduced a three-strikes policy that keeps positive tests for recreational (that is, non-performance-enhancing) initially confidential. It's controversial, but it shouldn't be. Warning the player is a far better approach than humiliating them. Young players are often thrust into a world of limitless hedonism by their celebrity and money, and can't always handle it. The AFL's approach lets them get the counselling they need to get past it.

I've been impressed to see to see how the players have reacted by snubbing Channel Seven. Obviously the network can't be trusted to look after players' welfare, or take the game's interests at heart, so it's only fair to punish them by other means.

And let's face it, if the AFL had banned every single player who had been linked to drugs this year, some clubs might not have been able to field teams.

The fact is that occasional drug use is extremely commonplace, and we need to adjust our attitudes. The AFL has led the way in dealing with the issue (and Johns' punishment has been similarly constructive) and the League should be supported, not undermined by irresponsible tabloid journalists with no regard for privacy or the well-being of those invoved. It is far more sensible to confidentially reprimand people and hope they'll learn their lesson than let loose the sniffer hounds whenever anyone's caught.

UPDATE: I wrote this yesterday, before it was revealed that Johns has, in fact, used ecstasy throughout his playing career. This will damage his reputation irretrievably. But it doesn't change my view about how best to deal with these situations.

Johns says that people at the club knew, which would tend to suggest there was a cover-up. Under the AFL system, where his privacy would have been guaranteed (Channel Seven notwithstanding), the problem could properly have been addressed, and he could have received the counselling he needed; discreetly and constructively.

Life must be difficult sometimes for high-profile sportsmen, and that's all the more reason for dealing with these issues primarily as a health issue, rather than as an opportunity for wowserism.

When the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union put out a press release in late June saying three foreigners on 457 skilled visas had died in four weeks, we thought it would be easy enough to find out who they were. We were wrong.

The press release said the deaths had occurred in Western Australia, Queensland and the Northern Territory. The union provided the few other details it had - a Filipino worker had been crushed between granite slabs near Perth, a man had fallen from a vehicle in the Northern Territory and a Chinese citizen had been killed in a logging accident in western Queensland.

But apart from these scant details, it had little else on how they died, let alone on who they were. The Minister for Immigration, Kevin Andrews, confirmed the deaths. And he did reveal that 17 other foreigners on 457 visas had died over the past five years, but insisted only three deaths were work-related.

He would not say who these people were, only that they came from the Philippines, Japan, China, Britain and the US, and died from causes that included heart attacks, road accidents and drowning. But when they died, where they died and the circumstances of the deaths remain confidential. It is hard to imagine why such details need to stay secret, given that families must have been notified long ago and the funerals already held.

We sought details of the deaths under the Freedom of Information Act but the Department of Immigration said it was snowed under with FoI requests and did not expect to be able to reply within the normal time limits. So we called everyone we could think of - police, ambulance, State Government work safety inspectors, coroners, local newspapers and consulates - all without success. All these organisations said either they did not have the names or were not able to provide them.

Eventually though, the Philippine consulate in Perth revealed enough information for us to be able to track down the families in the Philippines of those who had died. While the police and coroners had said they could not reveal the names because next of kin had not given permission, the next of kin were in fact desperate to talk to anyone in Australia, not just to discuss their loss but to learn about what lay ahead for them, whether compensation would be paid and what they needed to do to ensure that happened.

The Chinese consulate was far less helpful. The death was a matter between the company that employed its citizen and his family. It rebuffed repeated overtures to provide any help contacting the family of the dead timber worker.

It is hard to know quite why the Chinese were so secretive, but negotiations on a free trade agreement with Australia may have something to do with it. As part of that agreement, China wants the right to send large numbers of its workers to Australia to work on Chinese projects.

As these negotiations move into sensitive final stages, the Chinese Government will be anxious to avoid becoming involved in any controversy about the working conditions of Chinese citizens in Australia.

If it was not for a sharp-eyed reader of The Chronicle in Toowoomba who happened to recall a funeral notice for a Chinese man in June, we might never have uncovered the name of the dead timber worker - Guo Jian Dong. With the names of the dead workers in hand, the Herald was able to investigate the three deaths and reveal serious shortcomings with the 457 scheme.

State governments have been complaining for years that they cannot find out out where 457 visa holders are working and their inspectors are unable to carry out spot checks. The Commonwealth refuses to provide this information. It says all workers are covered by the same workplace safety laws and there is no need to single out companies that employ people on 457 visas from those that do not.

#The sad reality is different. Workers on 457 visas may be in the same position legally as other workers but they are much more vulnerable. They know that if they complain about their working conditions they can be sacked and sent home. Only by making the scheme more transparent, by letting people into their workplaces to see what is going on, will protection be improved for those employed under it.

New statistics show that Australian working families are bearing the brunt of rising living costs and that higher mortgage rates and rents are largely to blame along with the education and transport expenses.

I may have unfairly maligned Kevin Andrews. Sure, he's bungled the Haneef investigation, but the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship has been ever so industrious in the other side of his portfolio. Working together with the Prime Minister, who's long tried to codify Australianness despite the public knocking back that constitution preamble of his, Andrews has finally provided the definitive answer to the complex, loaded question of what it is to be an Australian with a handy booklet. Apparently being Australian is all about mateship and cricket. What a surprise from the Howard Government.

There's much more to the pamphlet than that, though. Thanks to its deliberately uncontroversial tone, much of it reads like a boring guidebook. Of course I don't have a problem with providing information to those arriving in Australia, or seeking to become Australian citizens. And it is true that citizenship involves rights and obligations, such as jury duty, and that the deal needs to be spelled out to those wishing to avail themselves of it.

What's more, to a new arrival (as opposed to those who've been here for years, and would be getting citizenship) some of the information would be genuinely useful, such as which level of government is responsible for what.

But to test people on this stuff, and only give them a passport if they get 60 per cent, is a silly notion, both symbolically and practically. Practically, the impact will be mere inconvenience. What will happen is that migration agents, or someone involved in the lucrative process of helping people settle here, will quickly cobble together a complete copy of the 200 questions and answers, and those taking the test will simply memorise them all, thus passing the test with flying colours. If people are willing to spend years and thousands of dollars getting citizenship, they'll be willing to cram for a test.

This process will also negate the more sinister aspect of the test, which is the attempt to test everyone's level of English. Personally, I don't believe English competence should be necessary for citizenship. Living in Australia without English skills is tough, and the incentives to learn are many - but for migrants in their 40s and 50s (over 60s are exempt) who might find it harder to learn, I really can't see why it's absolutely necessary for them to do so. Generally they will have younger, fluent relatives who can help them cope. If some migrants largely prefer to stay within their communities and converse in their own tongues, then good luck to them. People who aren't in a rush to integrate just don't bother me the way they seem to bother, say, callers to talkback radio. Anyone who's seen Australian expat communities will know that they aren't exactly distinguished by a rush to embrace a new culture and language.

By all means, the Government should offer free classes, and try to encourage everyone to learn English - it's inherently worthwhile - but requiring it seems excessive. A fiftysomething grandparent who arrives here on a family reunion visa should be allowed to become an Australian without having to prove they can answer multiple-choice questions about Phar Lap, especially when passing the test proves precisely nothing.

Does answering questions about mateship show you actually believe in it? Does choosing "Yes" when asked whether Australia believes in religious tolerance actually demonstrate a commitment to it? Of course not. You don't integrate people by lecturing them. Values are transmitted by community contact, not by government handouts.

The already infamous passage on the mystical reverence we have for mateship will be particularly ironic to those who've come as asylum seekers. Sure, "mates can be complete strangers", as the book puts it, but it so rarely works out that way.

The sample questions reveal just how banal and pointless the exercise is. They read like a particularly dull game of Trivial Pursuit. Honestly, who cares when our Federation happened, or what our floral emblem is? Knowing these factoids have absolutely no bearing on whether someone has integrated into our community, or can make a contribution to our society, or is committed to being Australian.

The whole process smacks of that particularly Howardian nationalism, which always seems to smack of trite self-congratulation tinged with insecurity. We are special, the book seems to plead. We are harmonious, aren't we? We love sport, and the ANZACs. That's really great. Weary Dunlop was a top bloke. "I am Australian" is an important national song. Yay. The brochure's as cringe-inducing as a Telstra ad, or the Bicentenary.

The project is an attempt at social engineering that would be sinister if it wasn't superficial. Of course our values are important, but this quiz simply does them a disservice. If we want new Australians to understand the importance of the "fair go", we should try giving them one instead of bullying them into reading about it. Really, it's just too ironic that Australia now intends to exclude people from joining it if they can't digest a pamphlet about how welcoming it is. As for Andrews, he should spend less time making migrants answer trivial questions about Simpson's donkey and more time answering important questions about our treatment of Mohamed Haneef.

It's amusing that in the week which Kevin Rudd finally gained an international reputation - admittedly for reasons other than political - his foreign affairs agenda is released.

While elements of the agenda, as exclusively revealed in Peter Hartcher's oped piece, carry a contemporary message - with climate change and the need to reinvigorate APEC being the most obvious - one could be forgiven for feeling that they were caught up in some Cold War time warp.

It's the couple of agenda items carrying a distinctive sixties feel that do that - most notably the suggestion of a nuclear arms race in the Pacific featuring our favourite protagonists, the United States and China - throwing up images of hippies, love ins, flowerpower and that first obsession with flares..

The above followed by the call for extra maintenance on the Australia-US alliance firmly imprints itself as my preferred angle for the visual theme.

It would be dishonest to deny that Kevin Rudd's swinging night in New York city was of no influence or that it played no role in portraying him as that nerdy champion of international intrigue Austin Powers.

Surrendering to the magic of Austin Powers is easy here, as he beautifully conveys a sixties concept with just the right dash of swing and foreign policy, and furthermore his wardrobe doesn't seem such a foreign affair on our opposition leader.

Enhancing the international flavour, Kevin Rudd races down a runway carrying token gifts of peace.

These stuffed toys, a kangaroo and bald-faced eagle, will take pride of place at the table once reaffirmation talks begin.

Kevin's hard-earned, all-new "swinging" international image should make him a natural at bringing "warring" parties into love-ins.

Dinner, followed by cocktails - what better way is there at solving those annoying global conflicts?

The Haneef case is back in the headlines again this week, and with Kevin Andrews promising to appeal against the decision to overturn his ban on the good (or otherwise?) doctor's visa, and the family's determination to take it to the High Court if necessary, we're more or less guaranteed it will stay there. I don't know whether Haneef is a terrorist mastermind or not. But, like many, I strongly suspect the latter, and his recent decision to release the whole of his second interview transcript seems to help him establish this. The case raises important questions about where we, as a society, draw the line between national security concerns and our values as an open, welcoming community. And, so far, like Andrews when he tries to explain why he doesn't want Haneef here, we just don't have good enough answers.

I had an interesting discussion with a friend recently who was only too happy to advocate the suspension of civil liberties in cases of suspected terrorism. Haneef's detention didn't bother him at all, he said. What if you had kids, he asked me emotively, and locking someone up could save them from being blown up? And it's not a bad question, although I'd like to think I'm reasonably opposed to other people's children being blown up as well.

The thing is, I'm not a huge fan of innocent people being locked up, or denied visas, either. Every Haneef situation chips away at Australia's precious openness, its wonderful easygoingness, its willingness to give people from around the world a chance to become part of its society. And that's why I think we need more than just guilt-by-association in this situation.

Look, if Haneef has been involved with anything dubious himself, of course we should tear up his visa forever – of course. We have been extremely fortunate to avoid any terrorist attacks on Australian soil since 9/11, and there is no doubt that we need to be vigilant. But it simply isn't reasonable to punish someone because their relatives were alleged terrorists. I have a lot of cousins with considerable integrity, and I'd hate for them to be thought worse of because of my own brush with the law. (Speaking of which, I didn't actually get my gear off – I was filming. And yes, I'm still waiting for damages from Fairfax.) Similarly, Peter Costello cannot be held responsible for all of his brother Tim's deeply concerning links with charity.

What the Haneef situation tells us is that there is something wrong with our immigration regime, which concentrates enormous power in the hands of the Immigration Minister. This discretion approach would not work even in the hands of a competent minister. Whereas, we have Kevin Andrews, who floundered on Latelinelast night. Andrews seems to think that the word "terrorist" is some kind of magic totem that renders him impervious to criticism – Tony Jones didn't buy it. And nor would any viewer. If Andrews can't make a better defence of his decision than the limp claim that "It goes to potentially people who have knowledge of things that have occurred in a terrorist way," it's hardly surprising so many people are sceptical about his claims.

His mantra that there is other evidence that can't be released because it would prejudice ongoing investigations is, by its nature, irrefutable so long as that evidence is not in the public domain. But this is unsatisfactory for all concerned – not least Andrews, who's left without the means to exonerate himself – and the tidbits he's presented so far have only bolstered the sceptics.

Moreover, since these decisions are made by a politician, it's impossible to leach the unpleasant taste of politics from the decision. Not only does it undermine the credibility of the decision, but it leaves the minister with no real grounds to defend himself from criticism if the decision is correct. In the absence of a smoking gun (or 4WD, perhaps), Andrews has little to no chance of convincing many that this isn't another attempt by the Howard Government to blow its proverbial dog whistle by showing its toughness on dubious immigrants. This should be a decision that is primarily about public safety & that is, law and order, not policy. And politicians are not good at making legal decisions. That's why we have a judiciary.

I'm not calling for a judicial inquiry like Labor, incidentally. That doesn't go far enough. Rather, the decision on whether to grant Haneef's visa – and indeed all controversial visa applications, even Snoop Dogg's – should be made by an independent review tribunal that is able to hear confidential evidence in camera so as to avoid compromising ongoing investigations, but is otherwise open to the public. Politics must be taken out of the process. Ultimately, the decision to cancel a visa is a judicial decision involving weighing evidence. Either Haneef is a threat or he isn't, and I think it's clear by now that Andrews is not the right person to make the judgment call.

Sure, passing these kinds of situations to an independent body would make it difficult for the Immigration Minister to front up on the news and look tough on migrants, but I wouldn't exactly view that as a disadvantage. And I've no doubt that even Andrews would now be happy for this particular hot potato to be passed onto someone else.

There are some positives to be drawn from the Haneef affair, though. The intense media scrutiny, the heated protests, and the public's apparent refusal to simply take the Government's statements at face value show that many of us place an enormous premium on our civil liberties, and – more contentiously – those of migrants. Australians are often accused of apathy as our liberties are eroded – an allegation David Marr raised recently. The public outrage over Haneef is a powerful counterexample.

At this point, surely Haneef is no threat to national security. Even in the extraordinarily unlikely event that he actually was involved in any terrorism, by this point the chances of him getting up to anything are surely non-existent. ASIO and the media will be watching him like hawks. Unless there is something seriously problematic that Andrews is keeping from us – and we're now at the point where he needs to come up with much better answers, or risk the complete erosion of the public's confidence in him – we should reissue Haneef's visa immediately.

Both have a night out with journos; one wakes up with a headache and the nagging suspicion he might be headed for the front page, the other wakes up and can't figure out why there's 50 bucks tucked in his G-string.

There was widespread disbelief yesterday, to say the least, that Rudd of all people would wind up in the middle of a strip-club scandal.

Unpaid library fines you could imagine. Revelations of a wild night on the wine cooler at the 1986 Christians on Campus convention culminating in the unsanctioned pouring of a bottle of Palmolive into the quadrangle fountain maybe.

But a New York night out with rivers of booze, that rascal Col Allan and a fleet of exotic dancers? It's puzzling.

Adding to the surreal feeling yesterday was the fact that Rudd answered questions with his customary sobriety and crispness.

"At the time, I raised these matters with my wife Therese and the circumstances surrounding them. I indicated to Therese

that it would have been far better for me to have simply returned to my hotel after dinner."

This rivals Emperor Hirohito's response to the bombing of Hiroshima ("The war situation has developed not necessarily to Japan's advantage") as a study in formal understatement.

They are the words of someone who has overslept and missed a meeting, not of someone who has got good and toasted at New York's self-styled "haven for horny high rollers".

According to the journalist Glenn Milne (a video record of whose own public experimentation with firewater can readily be revisited by Googling "Milne" and "punch" and "Walkley Awards"), Rudd got into strife at the club when he got a little fresh with some of the professional ladies therein. You can imagine the scene.

And perhaps Peter Beattie is right that the whole affair will show that Rudd "has blood in his veins".

Blood and Bundy, that is, which can't do him too much harm in the Sunshine State.

For now all we can do is marvel at the even-handedness of fate, which has dealt disaster to both sides of politics of late.

And goggle at the website for the Scores Club, where Entertainer of the Month Louanna reports, cheeringly for Rudd, that she is turned on by "confident, open-minded guys with blond hair and nice teeth. The ability to dance is a must."

I wish I could find it in my heart to find a little more sympathy for the nation's shareholders, I really do. But the news that the All Ordinaries has dropped 10% in the past 19 days, thereby officially counting as a "correction", had a certain bitter irony to it. Because despite all the endless energy pumped into financial reporting, stock analysts and the business media, despite all the incredible intellects that devote themselves to plotting the trajectories of numbers, the sharemarket is, at the end of the day, a casino. No wonder the Packers are good at business.

I've seen the ASX trading floor, and it looks a lot like a pokie – it's noisy and there are lots of flashing lights that record how you're doing your money. So really, when you take a loss like this, you should be able to double up. Or better yet, win a feature.

Or perhaps a more suitable analogy might be a game of Jenga, where you progressively build it up until it gets too high, and then there's a "correction", like the one we've just had. Generally involving gravity. This phrase always amuses me as well, because most hardened capitalists like to say the market's always right. Except for when it's totally, massively wrong, of course, which is when it "corrects". Like it was about the US subprime mortgage market.

The market, of course, is nothing more than millions of individual transactions, all mysteriously aggregated. Which is why I also find the capitalist emphasis on individualism so ironic. Because few things, in fact, support the New Age assertion that we're all connected like financial markets. Why, you may ask, have those who've put their savings into shares taken an absolute pounding today? Because American financial institutions issued dodgy loans – in some cases to people without assets, income or employment. "Subprime" really is a euphemism. The best way to describe these high-risk loans, evidently, is the "dodgy", or perhaps "crappy" mortgage market. With banks playing the role of the loan sharks, now furiously kneecapping those they never should have lent money to in the first place.

Another illustration of the interconnected nature of the global economy came in the form of the Asian financial crisis of a decade ago, when several nations' economies tanked thanks, in part, to currency speculation. So it may be more accurate to say that we are all, in fact, connected to George Soros.

I'm not especially gritting my teeth today, because, ladies and gentlemen, I don't own a single share. (Yes, you'd think they'd reward consistently superb writing like this with a parcel of Fairfax securities, but it seems they don't know their luck.) I started a CommSec account once, when I had a bit of cash but didn't actually get around to buying anything. Well, any shares, anyway – I did buy a Playstation 2. It all seemed too hard, and really, I had no idea what to buy. The only smart investment decision I ever made was not to touch Telstra with a ten-foot barge pole, although that was more motivated by lifelong resentment than financial sagacity.

Which makes me think that if I want to build wealth, I should seriously consider becoming a professional blackjack player rather than buying shares. At least I kind of understand the rules.

Housing's good too, of course. At the risk of making a bad pun, it has a wonderfully concrete quality. It can crash, albeit not so regularly, but compared with share certificates, it has the wonderful quality of keeping away rain and cold. And sure, I know that over time, the stock market has accumulated more quickly than housing. But so it should – it's far more nebulous, and far more prone to "corrections".

But despite my total non-participation in the share market, I'll feel it. We all will, whether though rising rents or mortgage interest rates. Because we're all connected to each other through the inextricable web of capitalism.

So, the foolish risk-taking of American banks will affect all of us to some degree. Much as we all have to pay for a costly war through our taxes because of the foolish risk-taking of George Bush. And I resent that. We shouldn't have to pay more rent or repayments in Sydney because overpaid analysts stuffed up at Bear Sterns in New York. As with Iraq, the foolish optimism of Americans ultimately affects everyone. In fact, I've a good mind to choreograph a controversial Rock Eisteddfod piece about the subprime lending market. And I don't care if the President'll be here or not.

Click onto the NSW Premier's Department website and you'll be welcomed by a beaming Morris Iemma reassuring you that if you want to know what his Government is up to, you have come to the right place.

CLICK onto the NSW Premier's Department website and you'll be welcomed by a beaming Morris Iemma reassuring you that if you want to know what his Government is up to, you have come to the right place.

"You'll find a great deal of information on this website," he says, "everything from community projects to details on government standards and protocols."

He is right. There is no lack of information, it's just that the most basic stuff needed to understand government policy is missing.

There is a section on "NSW colonial prime ministers" from 1856 to 1901 and one explaining the functions of the Office of Protocol and Special Events, but nowhere is there a list of government media releases.

Go to the Prime Minister's website and the media releases are all there, along with speeches, transcripts and the texts of radio broadcasts. There are links to the websites of every other minister, where the same information is instantly available, as you would expect in the internet age.

In Victoria, the Premier, John Brumby, has a website with every media release issued by the Victorian government over the past 15 years.

But in the biggest state there is still no way to find out what media releases the Government has issued on any particular topic. If you are lucky, and have the time, you will find some releases scattered around on different departmental websites, but nowhere is there anything approaching a central register.

And that information gap between Victoria and NSW is about to get a lot wider.

In one of his first speeches since taking over from Steve Bracks a few weeks ago, Brumby has promised he is going to open up his Government to much more scrutiny.

"The public wants more information, more background, more knowledge about how governments make decisions and why governments make decisions," he said. "I am a passionate believer in an open, democratic process. We live in a world where the public is hungry, I think, for more information."

He promised to rewrite the Freedom of Information Act and disclose the details of overseas trips by his ministers.

Given the regularity with which governments and oppositions make such promises, it is worthwhile treating them with a healthy degree of scepticism.

That said, it was refreshing to hear a head of government speak on this topic without being defensive.

"Governments need to be constantly questioned on the way they go about their business ... It is the journalist's job to break news. To go out and find stories that need telling, and ... without fear or favour, tell those stories."

It is not yet clear what changes he will make to the FoI Act, but Brumby said they would make it harder to exempt papers on the grounds they were cabinet documents.

"We will legislate to ensure that, except in national security cases, only real cabinet documents will be exempt from FoI."

Brumby promised measures to avoid the need for opposition politicians and journalists to lodge FoI requests solely to find out how governments are spending public money, including quarterly reporting of ministerial expenditure on trips.

He has also promised to identify all members of government boards and committees, and publish how much they are paid.

While Iemma cannot even get it together to publish a list of his government's media releases, Brumby has promised he will go a step further and publish transcripts of all his press conferences.

The last time Iemma spoke about FoI was a year ago, when he offered this nonsense to a parliamentary committee.

"The administration continues to review the operation of the [FoI] Act on an ongoing basis. Following that, along with consultation with the Ombudsman, the Government has published additional guidance for agencies in relation to cabinet confidentiality. The Government has also been working with the Ombudsman to update the manual for freedom-of-information practitioners. That manual will be available at the end of this year. It will be finalised by the end of this year and will be up-to-date."

Parts of Sydney will become highly fortified security zones during the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation summit in September. Tell us how APEC will impact on your daily life during Leaders' Week from September 2 to 9. Are you going to leave town? Will you work from home? Do you have to work in the declared or restricted security areas? What are you looking forward to?

In Question Time this afternoon Peter Costello was a tower of indignation. Kevin Rudd had tricked poor Rosanna Harris.

The Labor leader had used the hapless mother her as "a prop" for the TV cameras so he could get free airtime for his new policy to help renters.

And he had misled her with falsities, Costello fumed. He didn't use the word lies - that would be unparliamentary - but that was plainly the accusation.

The TV news bulletins last night showed Rudd asking Rosanna how much rent she paid on her house in the outer Canberra suburb of Banks.

The rent was $260, she replied. With Rudd and Wayne Swan and Tanya Plibersek crowding around her kitchen table under the glare of the TV lights, she must have felt like the victim of a home invasion.

Effectively, Rudd told her, under his policy, she'd get $50 bucks a week off her rent. Giving emphasis to empathy, he even cradled her baby.

Rudd was trying to illustrate the effect of his proposal to create more low-cost rental housing. Labor's policy would give property developers an $8,000 tax benefit on each new dwelling they build, provided they put them on the market at a rent 20 per cent below the market rate.

"That was entirely false," Costello exploded. "Rosanna Harris will get nothing off her rent. Rosanna Harris will not qualify for any part of this scheme whatsoever.

"Because, Mr Speaker, this will only apply to new construction from 2008 and any person who is currently in a rental will receive no benefit whatsoever."

Costello was right. He had caught Rudd giving the poor woman the misleading impression that she'd save $50.

But if Rudd was responsible for misleading a woman into thinking she'd save $50, Costello represents a Government that misled an entire nation into thinking they'd save a fortune on their mortgage payments.

The Howard Government was re-elected in 2004 promising to "keep interest rates low" and even promising to "keep interest rates at record lows."

Since then the Reserve Bank has raised official interest rates on five occasions by a cumulative total of 1.25 percentage points. The cost to a household with a $300,000 mortgage has been to add some $250 to monthly repayments.

That directly hits about 1.9 million households - the families with variable-rate mortgages.

But it also hits tens of thousands of small businesses which will find themselves paying more on their overdrafts and borrowings. It will also have knock-on effects throughout the economy.

That's the whole point, of course. The Reserve Bank raises rates to slow the economy, to head off any overheating.

Of course, the Federal Government could help temper the overheating by restraining itself. Instead, in the May Budget it added $70 billion in new spending and tax cuts over four years. And it's now gearing up for a multi-billion dollar spending spree to get itself re-elected.

If it were prepared to serve the national interest, and not just its own political interest, John Howard and Peter Costello would be spending less, not more.

But that's asking too much.

It's much easier for the Treasurer to rant about Kevin Rudd misleading Rosanna Harris over the $50 than to face squarely the fact that the Howard Government told a breathtaking lie to the nation at the last election.

Or talk about what the Government will do to improve supply of low-rent housing.

Peter, if this is the best the Howard Government can do, it's no surprise that Rudd Labor is leaving you in the dust. It's a sad way to celebrate your birthday.

The Prime Minister has just spoken on radio, offering what sounds like a quasi-endorsement of Kevin Rudd's new proposal to ease the pressure on renters. The idea is to offer incentives to companies to build rental properties.
I'm not sure exactly what's going on inside the Coalition on housing policy but there have been strong signs for several weeks that they had something ready to announce.
Why haven't we seen it yet?
Kevin Rudd got in pretty smartly with this announcement, and the PM has given what sounds for all the world like a Rudd response - 'we'll have a look at the exact detail, but not opposed to the idea behind it.'
These guys are dancing pretty much cheek to cheek at the minute, are they not?
It's one thing for Rudd to ape the PM on the economy, but for the PM to ape the Opposition leader's apery?
As Barnaby Joyce so fruitily observed last week: 'Any closer and Rudd'll have to get permission off Janette!'
It will be interesting to see how the narrowing of the polls suggested today by ACNielsen (which records a five-point primary vote turnaround in favour of the Coalition) influences behaviour in Canberra this week.
Incidentally, don't you love how the badge of both leaders at the moment is now 'relaxation'?
The Opposition leader today declared himself 'relaxed' about the Government's apparent comeback.
Hilarious, given that anyone who has ever met Mr Rudd has rarely known him to be relaxed about anything. Feverish industriousness is pretty much his permanent state.

Not recorded by Hansard, Peter Hartcher writes how a conversation
triggered by the observation that both men were wearing a red tie more or less symbolised their political standing.

In a week where Kevin Rudd has been accused of being a Liberal wannabe, this anecdote alone lends itself as the best source for my image.

It's often said that people that spend far too much time together end up taking up each other's mannerisms and dress code.

Why then would the odd sharing of a policy or two not fall into the same realm of possibility?

Parliamentary sitting days cannot be too healthy for the two of them. Sitting across from each other must be more than what each is able to bear.

Words such as "echo" and "twin" have recently been flung around, and since much talk has been made of the me-too-ism, i's appropriate to anoint them Me 1 and Me 2.

Me 1 and Me 2 is a two-headed monster joined at the hip. When one pulls one way, the other does his best to tug the other. But in the end, they were always going to head in the same direction.

Right up the centre in sync.

With all the screaming and tormenting that has been going on, this beast (conservatively speaking), is quite tame and one side only reacts to the other when necessary. This happens, as we have become accustomed to, quite often.

In a further abomination, one has grown hair while the other has lost it.

But see how alike they still are.

Drawing wise, keeping a likeness of Kevin Rudd without the hair was far harder than keeping a likeness of John Howard with it.

The winner by far is John Howard. He has shed the years that so concerns his keepers and with a certain degree of difficulty, from a distance could pass as a younger version of Rudd.

Me 1 and Me 2, while an instinctive wood dweller, is heading out of the woods and coming to a shopping mall near us.

IT'S four years since the Commonwealth Government held an inquiry following the outcry that erupted when Saudi Arabia left 50,000 of our sheep stranded on a ship claiming they were infected with scabby mouth. The report prompted by that disastrous voyage, called the Keniry Livestock Export Review, was one of several inquiries designed to improve the care of animals in Australia's lucrative livestock export industry.

IT'S four years since the Commonwealth Government held an inquiry following the outcry that erupted when Saudi Arabia left 50,000 of our sheep stranded on a ship claiming they were infected with scabby mouth. The report prompted by that disastrous voyage, called the Keniry Livestock Export Review, was one of several inquiries designed to improve the care of animals in Australia's lucrative livestock export industry.

If you search the copy of the Keniry review on the Department of Agriculture Fisheries and Forestry website, you will see the word "transparent" comes up nine times. Search for "transparency" and you'll find six more mentions, many of them among the recommendations to the then minister, Warren Truss.

The reason for transparency is that governments know people will have confidence in policies only if the process is sufficiently open to convince them they know what actually happens.

Transparency in the livestock export business was seen as particularly important given the zeal with which animal welfare groups have campaigned for decades to improve standards for animals on these ships, often by exposing the worst of the mistakes.

Under an agreement the Government reached with the animal welfare groups, Parliament is informed every six months of any shipment of livestock where the death rate exceeds certain percentages, known as a reportable level.

Later, the Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service posts on its website details of voyages where death rates have exceeded what are regarded as acceptable levels.

So in May, the service posted a summary of a shipment in October last year of 4657 cattle from Fremantle to Israel and Jordan. The trip lasted 26 days and 248 cattle died, well above the reportable level and enough to prompt an AQIS investigation. The summary of the investigation concluded rather blandly that "pneumonia and heat stress were the main factors" causing the deaths.

A column headed "actions" said sufficient antibiotics should be carried in the event of an outbreak of pneumonia.

But the details of how 248 cattle actually died were not included. That information was made available only after the animal welfare group Animals Australia lodged a freedom of information request in January.

AQIS originally estimated it would cost $2156 to provide the documents Animal Australia had sought, including a report of the voyage to Israel.

Six months of negotiating brought the price down and finally produced the seven-page report Animals Australia had sought from the outset. It included the crucial details the summary had left out. It said many cattle died because of "prolonged recumbency and leg infections".

"The AQIS-accredited veterinarian has stated that many of the Friesians died of septicaemia from wounds" and that 11 bulls were lame just four days into the voyage.

The wounds were apparently caused by "abrasive flooring in decks two to seven", the "relative inco-ordination [sic] of Friesians [when getting up] with abraisions" and "wet flooring".

That is clearly a dangerous combination. The report concluded: "A prolonged recumbency and relative difficulty arising on the abrasive flooring can cause skin damage which becomes infected because of the wetter than normal conditions. Once infected, the cattle spend an increased time recumbent and the cause of death is septicaemia."

What is depressing about all this is that it took six months and scores of hours of work to get hold of a report that should have been made available to the public anyway.

Even LiveCorp, the body representing live animal exporters, supports the idea of transparency and says so on its website. AQIS supports it, the Government says it supports it, but if you want to find out what goes on you still have to submit a freedom of information request to find out.

In one sense it's good that the service released the report at all. But surely it would be far better if it posted every such report on its website, especially as they are intended to prevent similar deaths in the future.

The reports are paid for by taxpayers; surely the few taxpayers who really are concerned about these issues should be able to get all the information as it becomes available without wasting their time and money enforcing their legal rights.

Matthew Moore is the Herald's FoI editor. Tell him your FoI successes and failures at foi@smh.com.au

I'm not sure that this is the reaction that Labor's webmasters were aiming for, but I couldn't help wincing a little when I took my first tour of Kevin07.com. It looks so much like Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton's sites, with the red and blue colourscheme that's universal in American politics. And the decision to call him Kevin throughout the site, like he's our friend, is really quite cringe-inducing, even though it'll probably help to make him seem more accessible. I blame Sunrise.

I have to confess that I couldn't resist poking Kevin Rudd via Facebook. But only to see if I could make his hair move.

Kevin07 commits the most unforgivable sin on the internet – it tries way, way too hard. It's so busy being in your face about how hip it is that it forgets to actually be it.

Most lame of all is all the interactivity guff. "This space is not about us - it's about you", the site coos. What rubbish. Come on, this is Australia, not America. We know that websites like this are about capturing our vote on election day, not getting all of us to hold hands and sing Kumbaya while we triumphantly propel Rudd into the Lodge.

And you have to ask yourself who Kevin07.com is going to convince who isn't already inside the Rudd tent. I doubt many undecided voters will pop through and think "I was going to vote Howard because of his record on economic manangement, but hang on, Kevin Rudd's on MySpace."

They're also trying to build a blogging community. Blogging first started to make an impact in the primaries before the 2004 Presidential election. Howard Dean's revolutionarily interactive website had a blogging component, blogforamerica.com, where those drinking the Dean KoolAid rapturously wrote about how different their guy was. It was soon matched by blogsforbush.com, and since then blogging has become a part of every campaign - most prominently on Barack Obama's website. So it isn't surprising that blogs have become a part of Kevin07's attempt to stake out all the online ground as Labor's.

But I'll be fascinated to see if anyone who isn't a Labor flunkie actually bothers to start a pro-Rudd blog. And that's because there's a massive gulf between the online political culture in Australia and America. Most political blogs - certainly on the left - are fuelled by idealism, and that just isn't as prevalent in our more cynical society. The primaries also make a difference - as candidates jostle for the nomination, they have to build up a base of supporters, and that means spending a lot of time defining what they are 'for', in highly abstract, highly rhetorical speeches, delivered with their hands on their hearts that fuels all of this idealism.

By contrast, no-one's salivating over how Kevin Rudd will transform politics. He has no Audacity of Hope, Barack Obama's book laying out his own personal vision for a Better World. And Labor's attempts to use expensive US-style ads that romanticise his personal story aren't why he's in the lead. No-one believes passionately in the glistening Rudd vision for Australia - even the man himself, I suspect. If he's elected, it will be because we're sick of the Howard Government, and Rudd seems competent, and (let's be honest) younger and therefore more in touch. End of story.

And it's the 'younger' aspect that is the most important aspect of Kevin07. Because there is no way his opponent would ever launch a site called John07 – or perhaps more accurately, given the need to semi-rhyme and own particularly retro brand of idealism, John51.

For starters, no-one ever calls the Prime Minister "John". He seeks always to brand himself as "the Prime Minister", and thereby render himself as inaccessible as possible. Whereas Kevin07 is about telling the internet-savvy generation that Rudd is one of them, that he "gets it", and isn't over the hill. His policy for faster broadband is an attempt to do the same thing. Rudd fits as naturally into a flashy but slightly annoying website as Howard does on the wireless.

I won't be spending much time visiting Kevin07.com. But its existence amply demonstrates shows why John Howard is freaking out so much that his campaign strategy now seems to be playing superhero with the states. (And really, it's beginning to get embarrassing. Federally-funded plebiscites on local council amalgamations? Holy irrelevancy, Batman!) There's simply no getting around the fact that Kevin Rudd is younger, and fresher, and has newer ideas than John Howard. And that's what Labor is desperate to make this campaign all about.

Personally, I'll be ostracising anyone who put a cheesy "KEVIN 07" button that they've downloaded from this website in their email signature. But I'll bet a whole lot of people do.

There seems little doubt that Sir Elton Hercules John feels threatened by the internet

According to the article titled, "Elton John's war on the web", one of the top read articles of the day, he has decided that the blame for declining sales and creativity should be heaped on cyber space.

At a time when even our own John Winston Howard is embracing the internet its surprising to hear that someone who calls himself an artist wants it shut down for five years.

Revelling in his status as a Luddite, Sir Elton's only concession to newish technology has been a song titled Rocket Man, though even these lyrics conjure up quaint sixties technology.

Admittedly Space Shuttle Person does not carry the same romantic connotation.

Possibly inspired by author Andrew Keen's book, The Cult of the Amateur, the argument is that the internet is "killing our culture and assaulting our economy".

All achieved by the publishing of " uninformed political commentary..........to embarrassingly
Amateurish music"

Would Andrew Keen find any of Sir Elton John's music embarrassing?

As for the ruining of economy it's hard to imagine that generation x and y are spending their evenings downloading Sir Elton John's tunes illegally, in turn affecting Sir Elton John's bottom line.

Restricting the use of the internet is akin to the burning of books.

The image that comes to mind is that of a city square piled high with personal computers, laptops and ipods melting in flames while the Interpols (internet police) accompanied by their supporters belt out a specially rewritten version of Candle in the Wind.

Sir Elton might argue that in a generation's time Sotheby's will not be able to auction the hand
written lyrics of a rock star who has composed on a laptop.

While smashing a personal computer on stage, he could go on and say, is no where near as exciting as destroying your guitar or drum kit.

Or that the appeal of standing on a stack of speakers sipping on a bottle of vodka somehow loses much in translation atop an Apple Mac.

All good points, but then Sir Elton clearly has not discovered the joys of Googling himself or online shopping.

Creatively Sir Elton could test the water by spending an evening jamming with Kraftwerk, or by inviting bloggers to compose a new set of lyrics for "Candle in the Wind".

In the above image a quaint Sir Elton John dispels any talk of the percieved lack of creativity and explores a new way of performing a sound check.

We are about to enter the high season for speculation on election dates. The betting shops are already taking punters' money. The prime minister can call an election any day now. The last date by which the election must be held is January 19.

It always follows the same pattern. Everybody has a theory, the pundits argue till they're blue in the face, but the decision rests with one man - and he hasn't made up his mind yet.

And while John Howard has to make the decision about the election date, Kevin Rudd has his own decision to make.

On October 9, it will be three years since the last Federal election, and Australian governments are elected for three year terms.

All the indications are that Howard will let his term run past this date. Why? Look at the polls - he would lose unless he can accomplish a serious turnaround, and the longer he works at it the better his chances.

When that date arrives, Kevin Rudd must decide whether to challenge Howard to bring it on.

The Labor leader could make an issue of it. He could publicly remind Howard that his three years are up. He could publicly ask Howard if he's frightened to call the election. He could wonder aloud why Howard is afraid of the Australian people.

And he could dare Howard to bring it on.

He would be attempting to reinforce the impressions of Howard as a frightened and desperate old man who doesn't know when to go. Labor could start a drumbeat, a daily count of the days after three years.

(Technically, the law allows Howard well beyond the three years since the last election date, till January 19, because he is allowed up to 68 days after the expiry of the term of the Parliament. And the term of the Parliament is three years from the first meeting of the House of Representatives after the last election - that was on 16 November 2004, so this House will expire on 15 November 2007.)

In the modern political era, it has only happened once that a prime minister has run beyond the three year anniversary of election day - that was at the 2001 election, when Howard went to the polls 3 years and 5 days after the anniversary of the previous election.

The online gambling agency Centrebet currently has November 10 as the favourite, at $4.25, with the next most favoured date November 17. The latest option available at Centrebet - an election after December 8 - is at $17.

Howard is the only one who really knows the most likely dates, and he will go when he thinks he can win. And Kevin Rudd has to decide whether to try to pressure him into calling the poll earlier than he might want to.

Of course, these shenanigans raise the excellent question - should we have fixed election dates?

At breakfast on Saturday I was incensed by John Thorpe's words in the Herald, so much so that I must confess I spilt my latte all over my ciabatta. Thorpe, who is the NSW President of that august body known as the Australian Hotels Association, is trying to stop Sydney City Council from liberalising liquor laws so that we can have smaller, Melbourne-style laneway bars. Of course, he doesn't fancy the competition, so he's doing everything he can to stop it from happening. Including verballing those like me who happen to like Melbourne's laneway bars. Well, Thorpe, this will not stand. As Jordan from Top Model so eloquently put it, game on, moll.

"We aren't barbarians, but we don't want to sit in a hole and drink chardonnay and read a book", he says. Speak for yourself, buddy. I'm quite fond of books, chardonnay – and, sure, sitting in holes, if that's how you want to define Melbourne's lovely small bars.

But Thorpe isn't in favour of speaking, at least not in pubs. When his precious industry is threatened, you can't shut him up, but he reckons no-one in this city likes the apparently "effete" art of conversation. I'm sorry, John, I know that you see this as "baloney", "pie in the sky stuff" and "not what Sydney wants". From your perspective, it seems that what Sydney wants is to mindlessly feed banknotes into poker machines – after all, that's how you're remunerated. But there are exceptions, and for us, your industry offers absolutely nothing.

"There's a lot more entertainment than sitting there chatting. I think our culture is a little different than Melbourne because they haven't got this magnificent harbour and the Opera House. No wonder they want to sit in a hole in the wall," he said.

Firstly, it's crass to make this a Sydney-Melbourne thing. It's not just Melbourne that offers intimate places to drink. There are bars like this in New York, Tokyo, Bangkok, Rome, Shanghai, Paris &ndash and even (shudder) Adelaide. The lack of options, in fact, is uniquely Sydney.

And I'm sorry, come again? Entertainment in pubs? Long gone as your members let pokies do the job of bringing in punters instead of bands, except with a very few exceptions. Oh whoops, you probably meant the football.

Which is great. I love watching football in pubs. Just not every time.

And this, of course, is the thing that is most outrageous about Thorpe's attempts to stop the development of smaller bars. No-one is suggesting we close down Sydney's mega-pubs. It would just be nice to have a few alternatives. I think it's called "freedom of choice" or something.

Take the cinema district, home to such wonderful watering-holes as Bar Ace, Moloney's, the Star Bar and Three Wise Monkeys. Look, if you want to snog a backpacker, or play pool, or get into a fight, or get frisked with a metal detector on the way in because of fears about gang activity, then those venues have it covered. But if you want to, I don't know, talk, then there's nothing for you in among all those 24-hour pubs.

Then he starts warning us about prices. "The bottle of wine from Dan Murphy's at $8 will cost you $50 at this intimate establishment," he says. I'm surprised he's heard that Dan Murphy's charges $8 for a bottle of wine, because the bottle shops operated by his members certainly don't. And frankly I'd gladly pay $50 just for a place where the music was soft, the atmosphere was reasonably intimate, and there weren't pokies.

Thorpe promised to visit the office of every minister he could "to inform them that this doesn't entice investment into the industry", apparently. No doubt he'll be listened to, given the AHA's symbiotic relationship with the NSW ALP. And the rest of us will once again have to suffer from the appalling lack of options in a city that boasts only overly loud mega-pubs and ultra-pricey, over-designed bars with unjustifiable levels of door-bitch arrogance. (Yes, De Nom, I'm talking about you.)

It's just outrageous. For heavens' sake, our publicans have a near monopoly on operating gambling in NSW. I can't imagine why anyone would think it sensible to legalise gambling only in places where you can buy products that reduce their judgement, but that's the way it is. Neil Armfield recently compared publicans operating pokies to dealers peddling heroin, and he's got a point. With their incredible capacity to generate profits from their pokies, the last thing pubs need is protection from smaller operators – especially since these laneway bars wouldn't have gambling (part of their appeal, of course), which would protect larger pubs' biggest earner.

There is no conceivable harm to opening smaller bars across Sydney; not even to the AHA members, given that they make so much of their profits from gambling. And really, I would have thought from Thorpe's dismissive tone that he'd rather tossers like myself didn't darken ordinary punters' good old Aussie pubs.

It's time we liberalised our embarrassing drinking laws. Other than the naked self-interest of a lobby group that already has it far too good, I can't see any good reason not to allow smaller bars in our inner-city. People don't binge drink, vomit and get into fights at Melbourne's intimate laneway bars. Nor do they become addicted to gambling and lose their week's wages. Get your own establishments in order, Mr Thorpe, and let the rest of us choose where we'd like to have a drink.

The flow-on effect, coupled with the likely interest rise next week, could potentially spell disaster for the Howard Government.

One can image the sirens wailing and loudspeakers blaring as the chaos and instability of the inevitable storm ahead approaches us. However, as Peter Hartcher explains, Australia never had abnormal equity markets conditions, so it does not face big adjustments.

Furthermore, an interest rate rise could be made to be an advantage for the Howard Government.

This is an intriguing proposition, as ostensibly an interest rate rise appears to be a cause if not for panic, but at least for deep concern.

The University of Advanced Logic goes to great lengths to teach us that the more interest rates rise, the deeper the government ship sinks.

But Mr Howard tells us that all this instability should give us even more reason to vote Liberal at the coming election.

Nevermind the five interest rate increases; he can save us.

Only he, we are assured, can steer this vehicle.

It might have taken on a bit of water, but under no circumstances must we believe that the crew has gone into panic-stations mode.

There are no flashing or screaming lights - it is all an illusion.

As Mr Howard scans the horizon, the logic is that you need to sink deeper to avoid the above turbulence.

There is really nothing to worry about, and those that do should be glad they don't face the burdensome task of steering this seemingly unpopular sub.

As the engineer awaits his captain's command, one needs to be reminded that in these claustrophobic confines, relationships can often become testy.

Recently, on his own accord, our engineer took the whole sub down to an undesirable depth. That still remains, need we be told, the exclusive domain of the skipper.

After all the instances of 'me-tooism' we've witnessed in the past few months, there really is a big old discrepancy emerging between the two major parties.

And it is about designing what Australia will look like over the next century.

Under John Howard's new doctrine of federalism, it doesn't matter which government is responsible for any given task - the running of a Devonport hospital, for instance, or the care of children in the Northern Territory.

What matters is that the task is being done competently.

If it isn't, he reckons the Commonwealth is entitled to step in.

This is a pretty fascinating career development for the Prime Minister, who with his colleagues in the 1980s and 1990s was very much an adherent of the notion that the best government was a small government.

The sight of state premiers, health ministers, treasurers and prime ministers arguing about funding is numbingly familiar, and over the last decade has assumed a weary inevitability.

But now, in what must surely qualify as the nerdiest election ever, federalism offers a significant area of difference.

Kevin Rudd is (we think) for a greater liberalisation of tied payments to the states - more power for them, that is to say, to spend Commonwealth money however they like.

He wants to sort out bickering with the states by giving them more responsibility, thus removing their ability to whinge about the Commonwealth.

Mr Howard's solution is very different - if bickering over a particular area becomes chronic, then the Commonwealth should just sweep in and take 'em over.

The appeal of this approach in the short term is utterly unmistakable.

Just ask anyone in Devonport what they'd prefer - an orthodox federal system, or a hospital?

Just imagine, by the way, what must be happening right now in the offices of marginal Coalition MPs all over the country.

Anybody who wants their house painted under the new Howard federalism would be a mug not to put in a call, wouldn't they?

Anyway, election or no election, it's a debate very much worth having - it's just that up until now 'whither federalism?' hasn't exactly been a barbecue stopper.

Does the Howard approach send us down the path of eventually abolishing the states completely?

Prime Minister John Howard has taken control of a hospital in Tasmania, saying Australians want the Federal Government to do more for frontline community services. He's says if state governments can't provide services, may be Canberra can.

He denies he's planning a centralist power grab or that he's pork-barrelling ahead of the federal election, but what about states' rights?

IT'S hard to have much sympathy for the financial plight of people rich enough to own waterfront property with their own wharves, jetties and swimming pools hanging off the backyard.

But have a look at what's happened to Sydney's saltwater set over the last few years and you might at least soften your view a little.

Back in 2003, the premier at the time, Bob Carr, asked his bureaucrats who work at IPART, the pricing and regulation body, to have a look at the rents government charges people who have ``domestic waterfront tenancies'', the rights to use slipways and all other structures built over the sea, below the high-water mark, over what is public crown land.

Carr wanted them to pay more and IPART came up with a new formula to increase rents to get a better return for taxpayers from a public asset. After receiving about 330 written submissions, IPART also recommended that, as well as increasing charges, the government change the formula for calculating rents in exchange for a package of occupants' rights.

It recommended, for example, that terms of occupancy be extended and that occupants have the right to transfer continuity of the rights to the wharves and jetties when they sell their property.

Unusual as it is for a modern Labor government to slug the rich by imposing rent increases of hundreds and sometimes thousands of dollars, that's what happened. The government accepted the IPART report and bumped up rents.

Problems began almost immediately. The first one came courtesy of the Supreme Court, which decided in November 2004 that private jetties could be used by anyone. In resolving a hotly contested dispute between neighbours, Justice Reginald Barrett decided any member of the public could go onto any private pontoon or other structure attached to a waterfront house and while away the day sunbaking, or just enjoying the facilities someone else had paid for.

The second problem was the waterfront residents themselves. They were not happy with the Supreme Court decision, which came down after IPART's report and changed the assumption on which it was based that occupants had exclusive rights to their structures.

The bigger bills began arriving at some 8000 waterfront properties, but there was no sign of the reforms the government had agreed to adopt. Members of a Pittwater-based lobby group, the Mainland Residential Waterfront Occupancy Holders, got sick of waiting. They lodged a class complaint with the Ombudsman stating they were paying increased rents while missing out on the reforms promised.

The Ombudsman investigated and said while he ``appreciated the frustration that would naturally be felt by those who have paid substantially increased rent for as much as 20 months now'', there was not enough incompetence to prove maladministration.

And then he wrote to the Department of Lands in January last year telling them he could not see ``any good reason'' for a two-year delay in implementing the IPART recommendations. He suggested April 2006 as a deadline.

Nothing happened. The residents kept up their lobbying effort and then, on the the last day before April, the then minister for lands, Tony Kelly, and his senior officials, met some of the Pittwater group.

After the meeting, the residents made good their undertaking to the minister and sent off a submission on what sort of tenure and conditions they thought appropriate. They awaited the department's response all year. They're still waiting. All they got was a new draft lease that ignored their position.

In desperation, one of the residents, Peter Lubrano, filed a Freedom of Information request in January this year to find out what the Lands Department had done with all their submissions.
The response said: ``A search of Crown lands records did not disclose any documents.'' How could that be? Mr Lubrano wondered. Surely there must be some correspondence or notes of their carefully argued case.

He sought an internal review. It turned up every document on the topic, even including a note about how he'd left his glasses case at a meeting. But there was nothing of substance.
The FoI process worked perfectly, it's just the government process that's been wanting.